Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Concept of Bid'ah

All the praise
and Thanks are due to Allāh, the Lord of the al-‘alameen. I testify that there
is none worthy of worship except Allāh, and that Muhammad, Sallallāhu alayhi
wasallam, is His Messenger.

The following is the text
of a talk given by Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Kellerat Nottingham and
Trent University on Wednesday 25th January 1995.

There are few
topics that generate as much controversy today in Islām as what is Sunnah and
what is bid’ah or reprehensible innovation,
perhaps because of the times Muslims live in today and the challenges they
face. Without a doubt, one of the greatest events in impact upon Muslims in the
last thousand years is the end of the Islāmic caliphate at the first of this
century, an event that marked not only the passing of temporal, political
authority, but in many respects the passing of the consensus of orthodox Sunni
Islām as well. No one familiar with the classical literature in any of the
Islāmic legal sciences, whether Qur'anic
exegesis (tafsir), hadith, or
jurisprudence (fiqh), can
fail to be struck by the fact that questions are asked today about basic
fundamentals of Islāmic Sacred Law (Syarī’ah) and its
ancillary disciplines that would not have been asked in the Islāmic period not
because Islāmic scholars were not brilliant enough to produce the questions,
but because they already knew the answers.

My talk tonight
will aim to clarify some possible misunderstandings of The Concept Of
Innovation (Bid’ah) in
Islām, in light of the prophetic
hadith. The Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) said:

”Beware
of matters newly begun, for every matter newly begun is innovation, every
innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell."[Muslim]

The sources I
use are traditional Islāmic sources, and my discussion will centre on three
points:

The first point
is that scholars say that the above hadithdoes not refer to all new things without
restriction, but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the
validity of. The use of the word “every” in
the hadīth does not indicate an absolute
generalization, for there are many examples of similar generalizations
in the Qur'ān and sunnah that are not applicable without restriction, but rather are qualified by restrictions found in other
primary textual evidence.

The second
point is that the sunnah and way of the
Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) was to accept new acts initiated in Islām
that were of the good and did not conflict with established principles of
Sacred Law, and to reject things that were otherwise.

And our third
and last point is that new matters in Islām may not be rejected merely because
they did not exist in the first century, but must
be evaluated and judged according to the comprehensive methodology of Sacred
Law, by virtue of which it is and remains the final and universal moral code
for all peoples until the end of time.

Our first
point, that the hadith does not refer to all new things without restriction,
but only to those which nothing in Sacred Law attests to the validity of, may
at first seem strange, in view of the wording of the hadith, which says, "every
matter newly begun is innovation, every innovation is misguidance, and every
misguidance is in hell." Now the word "bid’ah" or "innovation" linguistically
means anything new, so our first question must be about the generalizability of
the word every in the hadīth: does it literally mean that everything new in the
world is harām or
unlawful? The answer is no. Why?

In
answer to this question, we may note that there are many similar generalities
in the Qur'ān and Sunnah,
all of them admitting of some qualification, such as the word of Allāh Most
High in Surah al-Najm: “. . . A man can have nothing,
except what he strives for” (Qur'ān 53:39), despite
there being an overwhelming amount of evidence that a Muslim benefits from the
spiritual works of others, for example, from his fellow Muslims, the prayers of
angels for him, the funeral prayer over him, charity given by others in his
name, and the supplications of believers for him;

Or
consider the words of Allāh to unbelievers in Surat al-Anbiya:“Verily
you and what you worship apart from Allāh are the fuel of hell” (Qur'an
21:98),“what you worship” being
a general expression, while there is no doubt that Jesus, (‘alahissalam) his
mother, and the angels were all worshipped apart from Allāh, but are not “the fuel of hell”,so
are not what is meant by the verse;

Or
the word of Allāh Most High in Surah al-An’am about past nations who paid no
heed to the warners who were sent to them, “But
when they forgot what they had been reminded of, We opened unto them the doors
of everything” (Qur'ān 6:44), though
the doors of mercy were not opened unto them;

And
the hadith related by Muslim that the Prophet (Sallallāhu
‘alayhi wasallam) said: "No one who prays
before sunrise and before sunset will enter hell", which
is a generalised expression that definitely does not mean what its outward generality
implies, for someone who observes the dawn (fajar) and mid-afternoon (dzuhur) solats and
neglects all other prayers and obligatory works is certainly not meant. It is
rather a generalization whose intended referent is particular, or a
generalization that is qualified by other texts, for when there are fully
authenticated hadiths, it is obligatory to reach an
accord between them, because they are in reality as a single hadith, the
statements that appear without further qualification being qualified by those
that furnish the qualification, that the combined implications of all of them
may be utilized.

Let
us look for a moment at bid’ah or
innovation in the light of the Sunnah of the Prophet
(Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) concerning new matters. Sunnah and innovation (bid’ah) are two
opposed terms in the language of the Lawgiver, such that neither can be defined
without reference to the other, meaning that they are opposites, and things are
made clear by their opposites.

Many
writers have sought to define innovation
(bid’ah) without
defining the sunnah, while
it is primary, and have thus fallen into inextricable difficulties and
conflicts with the primary textual evidence that contradicts their definition
of innovation, whereas if they had first defined the sunnah, they would have produced a criterion free of
shortcomings.

Sunnah,in
both the language of the Arabs and the Sacred Law, means the “ way”, as is illustrated by the words of
the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) :

"He who inaugurates a good Sunnah in Islām [dis:
Reliance of the Traveller p 58.1(2)] ...And he who introduces a bad sunnah in Islām...”,sunnah meaning way or custom.The way of
the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) in giving guidance, accepting, and
rejecting: this is the Sunnah.For
"good sunnah" and
"bad sunnah" mean a
"good way" or "bad way", and cannot possibly mean anything
else.

Thus, the
meaning of "sunnah" is not what
most students, let alone ordinary people, understand; namely, that it is the
prophetic hadith (as when sunnah is
contrasted with "Kitab",
i.e. Qur'ān, in distinguishing textual sources), or the opposite of the
obligatory (as when sunnah,
i.e. recommended, is contrasted with obligatory in legal contexts), since the
former is a technical usage coined by hadith scholars, while the latter is a technical
usage coined by legal scholars and specialists in fundamentals of
jurisprudence.

Both of these
are usages of later origin that are not what is meant by Sunnah here.
Rather, the sunnah of the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) is his way of acting, ordering, accepting,
and rejecting, and the way of his Rightly Guided Caliphs who followed his way
acting, ordering, accepting, and rejecting. So practices that are newly begun
must be examined in light of the Sunnah of
the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) and his way and path in acceptance or
rejection.

Now,
there are a great number of hadiths, most of them in the rigorously authenticated (sahih) collections, showing that many of the
prophetic Companions initiated new acts, forms of invocation (dzikir),supplications (duā’), and so on, that the Prophet
(Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) had never previously done or ordered to be done.
Rather, the Sahabah (Companions) did them because of their inference and
conviction that such acts were of the good that Islām and the Prophet of Islām
came with and in general terms urged the like of to be done, in accordance with
the word of Allāh Most High in Surah al-Hajj: "And
do the good, that haply you may succeed" (Qur'an
22:77), and the hadith of the Prophet
(Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam):

"He who inaugurates a good sunnah in
Islām earns the reward of it and all who perform it after him
without diminishing their own rewards in the slightest."

Though the
original context of the hadith was giving charity, the interpretative principle
established by the scholarly consensus (def: Reliance of the Traveller ) of
specialists in fundamentals of Sacred Law is
that the point of primary texts lies in the generality of their lexical
significance, not the specificity of their historical context, without this
implying that just anyone may make provisions in the Sacred Law, for Islām is
defined by principles and criteria, such that whatever one initiates as a
sunnah must be subject to its rules, strictures, and primary textual
evidence.

From
this investigative point of departure, one
may observe that many of the prophetic Companions performed various acts
through their own personal reasoning, (ijtihad),
and that the sunnah and
way of the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) was both to accept those
that were acts of worship and good deeds conformable with what
the Sacred Law had established and not in conflict with it; and
to reject those which were otherwise.

This
was his sunnah and
way, upon which his caliphal successors and
Companions proceeded, and from which Islāmic scholars (radiyallāhu`anhum) have
established the rule that any new matter must be judged according
to the principles and primary texts of Sacred Law: whatever is attested to by
the law as being good is acknowledged as good, and whatever is attested to by
the law as being a contravention and bad is rejected as a
blameworthy innovation (bid’ah). They
sometimes term the former a good innovation (bid’ah hasanah) in
view of it lexically being termed an innovation, but legally speaking it is not
really an innovation but rather an inferable Sunnahhas long as the primary texts of the Sacred Law attest to
its being acceptable.

We
now turn to the primary textual evidence previously alluded to concerning the
acts of the Companions and how the Prophet, (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam)
responded to them:

(1) Al-Bukhāri
and Muslim relate from Abu Hurayrah (radiyallāhu`anhu)
that at the fajar solah the
Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) said to Bilal bin Rabab (radiallāhu`anhu):

"Bilal, tell me which of your acts in Islām
you are most hopeful about, for I have heard the footfall of your sandals in
paradise", and he replied, "I have done nothing I am more hopeful about
than the fact that I do not perform ablution at any time of the night or day
without praying with that ablution whatever has been destined for me to pray."

Ibnu
Hajar Al-‘Asqalani (rahimahullah) says in Fathul-Bari that the hadith
shows it is permissible to use personal reasoning (ijtihad) in choosing times for acts of worship, for Bilal
reached the conclusions he mentioned by his own inference, and the Prophet
(Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) confirmed him therein.

Similar
to this is the hadith in Al-Bukhāri about Khubayb (who asked to pray two rak’at
before being executed by idolaters in Makkah) who was the first to establish
the Sunnah of two rak’at for
those who are steadfast in going to their death. These hadiths are explicit
evidence that Bilal and Khubayb (radiyallāhu`anhum) used their
own personal reasoning (ijtihad) in
choosing the times of acts of worship, without any previous command or
precedent from the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) other than the general
demand to perform the solāt.

(2) Al-Bukhāri
and Muslim relate that Rifa'ah ibn Rafi (radiyallāhu`anhu)
said, "When we were praying behind the
Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) and he raised his head from ruku’ and
said, "Allāh hears whoever praises Him", a man behind him said, "Our Lord, Yours is the praise, abundantly,
wholesomely, and blessedly therein." When he rose to leave, the Prophet
(Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) asked "who said it", and when the man
replied that it was he, the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) said, "I
saw thirty-odd angels each striving to be the one to write it."

Ibnu
Hajar Al-‘Asqalani (rahimahullah) says in his
book Fathul-Bari that the
hadith indicates the permissibility of initiating new expressions of dzikir in the solāt other than
the ones related through hadith texts, as long as they do not contradict those
conveyed by the hadith [since the above words were a mere
enhancement and addendum to the known, sunnah dzikir].

(3) Al-Bukhāri related
from Aishah (radiallāhu`anha) that the Prophet (Sallallāhu
‘alayhi wasallam) dispatched a man at the head of a military expedition
who recited the Qur'an for his companions at
solat, finishing each recital with al-Ikhlas (Qur'an, 112). When
they returned, they mentioned this to the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi
wasallam), who told them, "Ask him why he does this", and when they
asked him, the man replied,
"Because it describes the All-Merciful, and I love to recite it." The
Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) said to them,
"Tell
him Allāh loves him."

In
spite of this, we do not know of any scholar who holds that doing the above is
recommended, for the acts the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) used to do
regularly are superior, though his confirming the like of this illustrates his
sunnah regarding his acceptance of various forms of obedience and acts of
worship, and shows he did not consider the like of this to
be a reprehensible innovation (bid’ah),
as do the bigots who vie with each other to be the first to brand acts as
innovation and misguidance.

Further,
it will be noticed that all the preceding hadiths are about solāt, which is the
most important of bodily acts of worship, and of which the Prophet (Sallallāhu
‘alayhi wasallam) said,"Pray as you have seen me pray", despite
which he accepted the above examples of personal reasoning because they did not
depart from the form defined by the Lawgiver, for every limit must be observed,
while there is latitude in everything besides, as long as it is within the
general category of being called for by Sacred Law. This is the sunnah of the
Prophet and his way (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) and is as clear as can be.
Islāmic scholars infer from it that every act for which there is evidence in
Sacred Law that it is called for and which does not oppose an unequivocal
primary text or entail harmful consequences is not included in the category of reprehensible
innovation (bid’ah), but
rather is of the sunnah, even if there should exist something
whose performance is superior to it.

(4) Al-Bukhari related
from Abu Said al-Khudri (radiyallāhu`anhu) that a band of the
Companions of the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) departed on one of
their journeys, alighting at the encampment of some desert Arabs whom they
asked to be their hosts, but who refused to have them as guests. The leader of
the encampment was stung by a scorpion, and his followers tried everything to
cure him, and when all had failed, one said, "If you would approach the
group camped near you, one of them might have something". So they came to
them and said, "O band of men, our leader has been stung and we have tried
everything. Do any of you have something for it?" and one of them
replied, "Yes, by Allāh, I recite healing
words [ruqyah,
def: Reliance of the Traveller p.17] over
people, but by Allāh, we asked you to be our hosts and you refused, so I will
not recite anything unless you give us a fee".
They then agreed upon a herd of sheep, so
the man went and began spitting and reciting the Fatihah over the victim until
he got up and walked as if he were a camel released from
its hobble, nothing the matter with him. They paid the agreed upon fee, which
some of the Companions wanted to divide up, but the man who had done the
reciting told them, "Do not do so until we reach the Prophet (Sallallāhu
‘alayhi wasallam) and tell him what has happened, to see what he may order us
to do". They came to the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) and told
him what had occurred, and he said, "How
did you know it was of the words which heal? You were right. Divide up the herd
and give me a share."

The
hadith is explicit that the Companion had no previous knowledge that reciting Al-Fatihah to heal (ruqyah) was countenanced by Sacred
Law, but rather did so because of his own personal
reasoning (ijtihad),
and since it did not contravene anything that had been legislated, the
Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) confirmed him therein because it was of
his sunnah and way to accept and confirm what contained good and did not entail
harm,even
if it did not proceed from the acts of the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi
wasallam) himself as a definitive precedent.

(5) Al-Bukhāri
related from Abu Said al-Khudri (radiyallāhu`anhu)
that one man heard another reciting al-Ikhlas (Qur'an 112) over and over again, so
when morning came he went to the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) and
sarcastically mentioned it to him. The Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam)
said, "By Him in whose hand is my soul,
it equals one-third of the Qur'ān."Daraqutni recorded
another version of this hadith in which the man said, "I
have a neighbor who observe solāt at night and does not recite anything
but al-Ikhlas." The
hadith shows that the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) confirmed the
persons restricting himself to this surah while performing solat at night,
despite its not being what the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) himself
did, for though the Prophet’s practice of reciting from the whole Qur'an was
superior, the man’s act was within the general parameters of the sunnah and there was nothing
blameworthy about it in any case.

(6)
Imam Ahmad and Ibn Hibban related from Abdullah
ibn Buraydah that his father said, I entered the masjid with the
Prophet (Sallallāhu 'alayhi wasallam), where a man was at prayer, supplicating: “O Allāh , I ask You by the fact that I
testify You are Allāh , there is no god but You, the One, the Ultimate, who did
not beget and was not begotten, and to whom none is equal”, and
the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) said: "By Him in whose hand is my soul,
he has asked Allāh by His greatest name, which if He is asked by it He gives, and if
supplicated He answers".It
is plain that this supplication came spontaneously from the Companion, and
since it conformed to what the Sacred Law calls for, the Prophet (Sallallāhu
‘alayhi wasallam) confirmed it with the highest degree of approbation and
acceptance, while it is not known that the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi
wasallam) had ever taught it to him (Adilla
Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jamaah, 119-33).

We
are now able to return to the hadith with which I began my talk tonight, in
which the Prophet (Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) said,
". . . Beware of matters newly begun, for every innovation is
misguidance". And understand it as expounded by a
classic scholar of Islām, Sheikh Muhammad Jurdani, (rahimahullah), who said:

"Beware of matters newly begun", distance
yourselves and be wary of matters newly innovated that did not previously
exist, i.e. things invented in Islām that contravene the Sacred Law, "for every innovation is misguidance"meaning
that every innovation is the opposite of the truth, i.e. falsehood, a hadith
that has been related elsewhere as: "for every newly begun matter is innovation, every
innovation is misguidance, and every misguidance is in hell" meaning
that everyone who is misguided, whether through himself or by following
another, is in hell, the hadith referring to matters that are not good
innovations with a basis in Sacred Law. It
has been stated (by Izz ibn Abd al-Salam, rahimahullah) that
innovations (bid’ah) fall under
the five headings of the Sacred Law (n: i.e. the obligatory, unlawful,
recommended, offensive, and permissible):

(1) The first
category comprises innovations that are obligatory ,
such as recording the Qur'an and the laws of Islām in writing when it was
feared that something might be lost from them; the study of the disciplines of
Arabic that are necessary to understand the Qur'ān and sunnah’ such as grammar,
word declension, and lexicography; hadith classification to distinguish between
genuine and spurious prophetic traditions; and the philosophical refutations of
arguments advanced by the Mu'tazilites and the like.

(2) The second
category is that of unlawful innovations such
as non-Islāmic taxes and levies,giving positions of authority in Sacred Law
to those unfit for them, and devoting ones time tolearning the beliefs
of heretical sects that contravene the tenets of faith of Ahl al-Sunnah.

(3) The third
category consists of recommended innovations such as
building hostels and schools of Sacred Law, recording the
research of Islāmic schools of legal thought, writing books on beneficial
subjects, extensive research into fundamentals and particular applications of
Sacred Law, in-depth studies of Arabic linguistics, the reciting of wirids (def: Reliance of the Traveller w20)
by those with a Sufi path, and commemorating the birth (mawlid), of the Prophet Muhammad
(Sallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) and wearing ones best and rejoicing at
it.

(4) The fourth
category includes innovations that are offensive, such as embellishing mosques; decorating the
Qur'ān and having a backup man (muballigh) loudly repeat the spoken Allāhu Akbar of the imām when the latter's voice is already clearly audible to
those who are praying behind him.

(5)
The fifth category is that of innovations that are permissible, such
as sifting flour, using spoons and having more enjoyable food, drink and
housing. (Al Jawahir al-luluiyya fi
sharh al-Arbain al-nawawiyya, 220-21).

I will
conclude my remarks tonight with a translation of Sheikh Abdullah
al-Ghimari, (rahimahullah), who said: In his “Al-Qawaid Al-Kubra”, Izz ibn Abd al-Salam (rahimahullah),
classifies innovations (bid’ah), according
to their benefit, harm, or indifference, into the five categories of rulings:
the obligatory, recommended, unlawful, offensive, and permissible; giving
examples of each and mentioning the principles of Sacred Law that verify his
classification. His words on the subject display his keen insight and
comprehensive knowledge of both the principles of jurisprudence and the human
advantages and disadvantages in view of which the Lawgiver has established the
rulings of Sacred Law.

Because
his classification of innovation (bid’ah) was
established on a firm basis in Islāmic jurisprudence and legal principles, it
was confirmed by Imam Nawawi, Ibn Hajar Asqalani, and
the vast majority of Islāmic scholars, (rahimahumullah), who received his words
with acceptance and viewed it obligatory to apply them to the new events and
contingencies that occur with the changing times and the peoples who live in
them. One may not support the denial of his classification by clinging to
the hadith "Every innovation is misguidance",because
the only form of innovation that is without exception misguidance is that
concerning tenets of faith, like the innovations of the Mutazilites, Qadarites,
Murjiites, and so on, that contradicted the beliefs of the early Muslims.This is the
innovation of misguidance because it is harmful and devoid of benefit.

As for
innovation in works, meaning the occurrence of an act connected with
worshipor something else that did not exist in the first century
of Islām, it must necessarily be judged according to the five categories mentioned
by Izz ibn Abd al-Salām (rahimahullah),.
To claim that such innovation is misguidance without further qualification is
simply not applicable to it, for new things are among the exigencies brought
into being by the passage of time and generations, and nothing that is new
lacks a ruling of Allāh Most High that is applicable to it, whether explicitly
mentioned in primary texts, or inferable from them in some way.

The only reason
that Islāmic law can be valid for every time and place and be the consummate
and most perfect of all divine laws is because it comprises general
methodological principles and universal criteria, together with the ability its
scholars have been endowed with to understand its primary texts, the knowledge
of types of analogy and parallelism, and the other excellences that
characterize it. Were we to rule that every new act that has come into being
after the first century of Islām is an innovation of misguidance without
considering whether it entails benefit or harm, it would invalidate a large
share of the fundamental bases of Sacred Law as well as those rulings
established by analogical reasoning, and would narrow and limit the Sacred Laws
vast and comprehensive scope. (Adilla
Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jama’ah, 145-47).